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Interview with US
Magazine
March 2000 |
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 Q: ARE YOU TIRED OF SINGING AND DANCING ?
TINA: No. It's not the jumping and dancing. I can do that forever. It's
the singing that's hard. I don't know another way yet to stand in front of
an audience and do it. I still need to move and play, so the new act will
a mix -- a small, watered version of what I do, almost like a rehearsal.
Q: LAST OCTOBER YOUR MOTHER DIED. YOU'VE SAID SHE DIDN'T LOVE YOU !
TINA: She didn't. I wasn't wanted. When she was pregnant with me, she was
leaving my father. She was a very young woman who didn't want another kid.
 Q: WERE YOU EVER CLOSE ?
TINA: Never. Even when I was a little girl I knew she didn't love me. When
I was very young, I wondered why we weren't close, but I was always a
loner, and then I became independent and didn't care anymore.
I confronted her years later, when a European psychic explained to me that
I had been an unwanted child while still inside her. I said "Ma, I want to
talk to you because we never got along" And she cried and told me the
story. My mother never looked at me. When I was with Ike, she thought he
did everything, because he was a star when I met him. It was as if Ike was
the connection I made for them. It was very hard for my mother and sister
to respect me for my talent. We were two people, but he took the credit.
They weren't even smart enough to see that I mattered. Eventually, I
brought Ma to Paris, London, Switzerland, and New York to show her what my
world was like, and she still didn't believe that I had done everything
for myself.
When we got to my house in the South of France, she believed that my
boyfriend had decorated it, even though he told her, "Tina is the interior
decorator" Ma said, "I don't think she did it". Finally, I proved it to
her.
At my house in Switzerland, everything was lying around -- we were
building -- and in 30 minutes I put the house all together. She walked
upstairs and she said, "You did all this?" I said, "Ma, I told you! This
is what I can do" And she was quiet. She realized, finally, in her own
way, at her age, who I was.
She gave everybody a hard time. During her illness we went through 20
nurses. No matter how much pleasure I tried to give her, she couldn't find
her peace. She really suffered those eight months. Whatever her karma was,
it reached in and squeezed the life out of her.
Q:
WHERE WERE YOU WHEN SHE DIED ?
TINA: In Europe on a promotional tour for the new album. But I called
daily. One afternoon I was preparing for a bath when Rhonda came in and
said "Tina, Ma died". And I just went, (in a loud, primal scream) "AHHH!"
 Q: Didn't Ike show up at her funeral ?
TINA: Yes. He and Ma had kept in touch, and he showed up and was very
upset that I wasn't there. So he went to the newspapers, and all over
Europe the press said: "Tina shuns her mother's funeral".
I wanted to give my mother her moment. Everyone called asking, "Is Tina
going to be there?". We said "Don't come just because of Tina" I wasn't in
the frame of mind to be stared at. I didn't need it, nor did Ma need it
from me. So I felt, let her have that day.
Q: But you did attend her cremation, right ?
TINA: Yes, and somebody took pictures of me that appeared in the European
papers, which said, "Tina is here after all". People saw Ike using my dead
mother to get press.
(At the cremation) That's when I really cried. When they put the casket
into the crematorium, I could see the flames leaping, saw the fire catch
her hair and clothes and suddenly thought, I'm burning my mother -- even
though she wanted it. I thought, she's really gone now.
Q: What's your perspective of your marriage to Ike now ?
TINA: I've never said this before, but I don't feel like I've ever been
married.
Q: Do you mind that you were the pursuer with Erwin ?
TINA: I've always had to work to get everything I have, so I didn't care
about not being asked. Besides, it wasn't about what HE wanted, it was
something I wanted.
I made the choice, then he came to like me more and more.
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